Aidan O’Shea insists that Mayo still believe they can beat Dublin despite repeated setbacks against them.

After suffering a 12-point loss when they met in the League this year, Mayo’s winless run against the All-Ireland champions stands at 11 games, with last year’s drawn and replayed All-Ireland finals still relatively fresh in the memory.

The versatile O’Shea missed the 1-16 to 0-7 defeat on March 4 through injury though insists it wasn’t a date that Mayo had circled on the calendar.

“I wouldn’t be concerned about the margin of defeat,” he said. “We were just a little all over the place.

“I wasn’t with the group, and I know they were disappointed, and sometimes we have games like that, blown out of it.

Dublin's Philip McMahon with Aidan O’Shea of Mayo after the game (Image: INPHO/Ryan Byrne)

“Cork last year, Dublin this year, but we didn’t look too much into it. We didn’t highlight that game at the start of the year.

“Hopefully there will come a time we play Dublin again. We wanted to win every game, but we didn’t single out Dublin on March whatever.

“If we’d beaten Monaghan at home, beaten Cavan, we would have been in the League final.